Spider game weirdness

Referring to the Microsoft "Spider" solitaire game. PC is P-III 1000,
128meg. Intel 810E mobo, Win98, service packed and DirectXed up to date. Not
the latest and greatest, but not totally old shit either. When starting the
game, and dealing cards from the stack, they crawl up the screen, taking
about 10 -15 seconds to deal the 10 cards. Also, when a suit is completed,
it takes about the same time for them cards to move down to the bottom of
the screen. Apart from that, the game works as expected. UNLESS I start up
Outlook Express 6 and go online. The the cards deal (and completed suit move
down) really fast, less than 2 seconds. The network connection is via a 3Com
etherlink 10/100 card to a Mitel SME server, and to the net via modem from
there.
This is the only thing that is affected in this way, any other card games
run fine on or off line. Any ideas?

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"pete" <> wrote in
news:Rf4Jb.15349$:
> Referring to the Microsoft "Spider" solitaire game. PC is P-III 1000,
> 128meg. Intel 810E mobo, Win98, service packed and DirectXed up to
> date. Not the latest and greatest, but not totally old shit either.
> When starting the game, and dealing cards from the stack, they crawl
> up the screen, taking about 10 -15 seconds to deal the 10 cards. Also,
> when a suit is completed, it takes about the same time for them cards
> to move down to the bottom of the screen. Apart from that, the game
> works as expected. UNLESS I start up Outlook Express 6 and go online.
> The the cards deal (and completed suit move down) really fast, less
> than 2 seconds. The network connection is via a 3Com etherlink 10/100
> card to a Mitel SME server, and to the net via modem from there.
> This is the only thing that is affected in this way, any other card
> games run fine on or off line. Any ideas?
>
>
>
Sounds like a virus or trojaned version of solitaire. Run a full scan,
do you have a firewall? Is Spider trying to access the internet?
You said it is faster when you have OE open and are connected to the
internet, which leads me to think it may be related. Sometimes graphics
drivers are also an issue, are they up to date too?

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"Dave Taylor" <> wrote in message
news:Xns9465BDFB49971daveytaynospamplshot@202.20.93.13...
> "pete" <> wrote in
> news:Rf4Jb.15349$:
>
> > Referring to the Microsoft "Spider" solitaire game. PC is P-III 1000,
> > 128meg. Intel 810E mobo, Win98, service packed and DirectXed up to
> > date. Not the latest and greatest, but not totally old shit either.
> > When starting the game, and dealing cards from the stack, they crawl
> > up the screen, taking about 10 -15 seconds to deal the 10 cards. Also,
> > when a suit is completed, it takes about the same time for them cards
> > to move down to the bottom of the screen. Apart from that, the game
> > works as expected. UNLESS I start up Outlook Express 6 and go online.
> > The the cards deal (and completed suit move down) really fast, less
> > than 2 seconds. The network connection is via a 3Com etherlink 10/100
> > card to a Mitel SME server, and to the net via modem from there.
> > This is the only thing that is affected in this way, any other card
> > games run fine on or off line. Any ideas?
> >
> >
> >
> Sounds like a virus or trojaned version of solitaire. Run a full scan,
> do you have a firewall? Is Spider trying to access the internet?
> You said it is faster when you have OE open and are connected to the
> internet, which leads me to think it may be related. Sometimes graphics
> drivers are also an issue, are they up to date too?
>
> Ciao, Dave

While they don't claim it to be a firewall as such, SME (aka E-smith) say
that that will do most of what a dedicated firewall does. Virus scanner is
nortons, updated weekly. No 'net access is noted while Spider is running.
Graphics drivers I believe are cuurent, given that the 810E chipset is
relatively ancient and Intel prolly gave up on it yonks ago. Thanks for your
comments, though.

pete wrote:
> Graphics drivers I believe are
> cuurent, given that the 810E chipset is relatively ancient and Intel
> prolly gave up on it yonks ago. Thanks for your comments, though.

Man the 810 chipset sucks! I have a Celly 900 here and, when running it in a
BX chipset mobo, it benchmarks 45% faster than it does in the 810. Thats
45%!! For a later chipset. (All other hardware identical).
--
~misfit~

I had read that the BX was one of the better things Intel did. I have one
with a P-III 500 (Slot 1) but the 810E is the only thing I have that will
take the P-III 1g. I've never benchmarked anything and the PCs are pretty
low priority items in the household so difficult to get an upgrade past the
financial controller just because its faster (even 45%)

On Mon, 05 Jan 2004 00:44:33 +0100, Uncle StoatWarbler wrote:
> On Sat, 03 Jan 2004 23:45:14 +1300, pete wrote:
>
>> While they don't claim it to be a firewall as such, SME (aka E-smith) say
>> that that will do most of what a dedicated firewall does.
>
> Software firewalls are as effective as a condom on a dildo.
>
> If you want protection, use a hardware NAT box of some description.
I think it is doing NAT to a degree. Connection to the 'net via dial-up, so
that side is getting whatever IP # Paradise give it. Connection to the LAN
is via network card, and everything on this side is getting IP# assigned
by SME within a certain range (192.168.etc.) SME is running on a dedicated
PC, and in all the time its been going, no bad stuff has got through (not
that Nortons, which is updated weekly, has ever told me about, anyway)

On Mon, 05 Jan 2004 18:59:35 +1300, pete wrote:
>> Software firewalls are as effective as a condom on a dildo.
>>
>> If you want protection, use a hardware NAT box of some description.
> I think it is doing NAT to a degree. Connection to the 'net via dial-up, so
> that side is getting whatever IP # Paradise give it.

But still a winbox with its ass exposed to the passing script kiddies.
> Connection to the LAN
> is via network card, and everything on this side is getting IP# assigned
> by SME within a certain range (192.168.etc.)

Check out www.smoothwall.org, it will run fine on a surplus i386 (fast
enough for dialup) and isn't vulnerable to the usual run of Windohs
attacks.

There are a _large_ number of exploits and worms floating out there which
will infect everything INSIDE the LAN once the dialup box is compromised.

Uncle StoatWarbler wrote:
> On Mon, 05 Jan 2004 18:59:35 +1300, pete wrote:
>
>>> Software firewalls are as effective as a condom on a dildo.
>>>
>>> If you want protection, use a hardware NAT box of some description.
>
>> I think it is doing NAT to a degree. Connection to the 'net via
>> dial-up, so that side is getting whatever IP # Paradise give it.
>
> But still a winbox with its ass exposed to the passing script kiddies.

winbox ?
SME (e-smith) is built from Redhat and has an iptables firewall
It is NAT, it allows options of DHCP client or static on the external
interface and DHCP server or static on the internal interface, with the
usual options of routing pinholes.

>
>> Connection to the LAN
>> is via network card, and everything on this side is getting IP#
>> assigned by SME within a certain range (192.168.etc.)
>
> Check out www.smoothwall.org, it will run fine on a surplus i386 (fast
> enough for dialup) and isn't vulnerable to the usual run of Windohs
> attacks.

Heads up that old boxes may have old UARTs that are too slow for 56k modems
Been there done that.
For a home dialup user SME offers a lot more than Smoothwall.
It would be better if it was Debian, but you can't have everything.
Anyone know an e-smith type distro for debian ?

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